CONNECT IQ STORE: display the number of downloads not rounded

I’d go further and say it should be possible to get meaningful stats on usage of our own apps at all. 
The stats have always been opaque and omit really basic information. 
It doesn’t need to be displayed, either. 
For anyone who cared to look, a simple CSV or JSON file download would be enough. 
It would be nice to see:

Summary data of

- downloads per period

- downloads per device model 

- updates installed per period (to download is one thing, to actually update implied that download is in some way useful)

They switched to the rounded numbers not long ago, and no one has said why,,,

forums.garmin.com/.../ciq-store-app-download-numbers-now-rounded-to-nearest-integer-power-of-10-or-5-power-of-10-e-g-100-1k-10k-50k-100k-500k-10m

Further to that in the context of watch faces -

Garmin syncs everything to the mothership, so they know which watch runs which watch face. It'd be trivial for them to display not only an exact download count, but also the active user numbers. Not necessarily updated in real-time, but even a daily aggregate would go a very long way here to provide some feedback loop. Because, if I am being honest, the "Statistics" tab on the store page feels like some sort of a joke.

eau_de_vie said:

It'd be trivial for them to display not only an exact download count

Not to state the obvious, but until the recent switch to (extremely) rounded numbers, the web-based store displayed an exact download count (as in number of full installs, not updates), so it's clearly a conscious choice to no longer do so.

Additionally, long ago, statistics used to show a graph of installs / updates over time (although two types of downloads were aggregated), which gave devs a nice way to see the impact of releasing an update (and to gauge how many ppl were still using an app, or at least still had it installed.) The reasons for getting rid of that graph are likely unconnected to the reason for implementing this new rounding, since it was such a long time ago.

As I said in the thread, it's interesting that:

- the "extreme" rounding is done on the backend so it's impossible for anyone outside of Garmin to even know the exact number now, possibly suggesting that the change isn't just for cosmetic reasons (*). Furthermore, "cosmetic" rounding was always done in the CIQ store app, where download and review counts were already rounded to the nearest handful of significant digits (e.g. 123,456 => 123K), which also suggests that this change is not solely for cosmetic reasons.

(* ofc an alternate explanation for this is that it was the simplest way to implement extreme rounding in a way that would affect both the website and all versions of the app, so it would be less work to implement and users wouldn't even have to update the CIQ app to see the change. EDIT: but then again, both the website and the store were in fact changed to receive the cosmetic changes that went along with the extreme rounding)

- this change happened around the same time as the CIQ store monetization announcement. Could this really be a coincidence?

For what it's worth, I think this change is not malicious in nature, but rather something that came from a head of some designer that was a fan of "clean" number aesthetics.

I just don't see what the heck this change could achieve even if we assume it had business roots. Except, of course, for upsetting developers by robbing them of an important statistic.

eau_de_vie said:

For what it's worth, I think this change is not malicious in nature, but rather something that came from a head of some designer that was a fan of "clean" number aesthetics.

But the Connect IQ store app already rounded download and review counts before this change. (e.g. 123,456 => 123K, 13,587 => 14K).

Now download counts are rounded even more severely (123,456 => 100K) in both the app and the website, but review counts are still rounded in the same way as before, on the app. On the CIQ store website, review counts are still unrounded.

If this was all about design, then the same style of extreme rounding should've been applied to review counts, but it wasn't. In fact, the website and the app still do their own thing with review counts, whereas download counts are now displayed the same way on the website and app. Is that a coincidence?

For example, GLANCE watch face is shown as having "1M+" downloads and "14K" reviews in the CIQ store app. Before this change, the app would've shown something like "1.6M" downloads and "14K" reviews.

For GLANCE watch face, the website says "1M+" downloads and "13,587" reviews. If you looked on the website before the change, the exact download number would've been displayed, and it would ofc be present in the API response for the app's information. But now if you look at the API response, the downloadCount value is simply "1000000": [https://apps.garmin.com/api/appsLibraryExternalServices/api/asw/apps/07ae0f49-7240-4475-a229-4507e8035fae?]

If this was solely for cosmetics, why would the download count be rounded on the backend? Cosmetic changes were made to both the website and the app changed to accomodate the new rounding, so the rounding could've been done in the website and an app as well, as opposed to the backend request:

- the website was changed to truncate the download count and display the "+" (e.g. "1M+"). If you had an old version of the website js cached at the time the backend was changed, you would've seen "1000000" instead of "1M+". (this actually happened to one of the forum posters, as you can see in the thread linked above.)

- the app was changed to truncate the download count and display the "+" (e.g. "1M+"). If you have an old version of the store app, it still displays "1.0M". (Bc ofc it doesn't know about the new cosmetics)

So the backend was changed to remove information about the exact download count ("extreme" rounding) while the website and app were changed to accommodate the new rounding with cosmetic changes. One could easily have envisioned a scenario where both the rounding and the cosmetic changes were done on the front ends of the website and the app. Is it significant that the rounding was done on the backend? Only Garmin knows

I don't think it's "malicious" (although I get what you mean), I just think it's connected to monetization. I think they don't want ppl to have access to the exact number of installs, or even anything close to the exact number (2-3 sig figs).

To say all of that more simply, the download count and review count are right next to each other in the CIQ store.

If "severe rounding" of the download count was done for aesthetics, to me it doesn't make sense to change the download count but not the review count - e.g. I would expect the review count to be displayed as "10K+" below.

I'll also note that google play seems to do something similar with download counts -  e.g. apps are shown as having "100+", "500+", "50K+" or "5M+" downloads. Review numbers have more precision - e.g. "3.75K reviews".

The Apple app store doesn't even show the number of downloads, but instead ranks apps in a given category (e.g. "#20 in action"). Rating counts look like this: "109.9K Ratings".

So clearly nobody cares about having super clean numbers when it comes to reviews/ratings, they just round review/rating numbers normally.

Again, this is just speculation, but I think the reason behind obscuring or hiding download numbers is so that people can't guess exactly how much money you make off your apps.

I think this is supported by:

- the fact that Apple and Google also do this (in one form or another)

- the fact that the Garmin change coincided with the monetization announcement

- the fact that both Google and Garmin put a "+" at the end of the download count, as if to emphasize this is just a very rough number. Notice how review counts never have a "+", even when rounded

If this is in fact the case, Garmin should have no reason to prevent developers from seeing their own exact download / install counts (other than the fact it would be additional work to implement such a feature.)

FlowState said:

I don't think it's "malicious" (although I get what you mean), I just think it's connected to monetization. I think they don't want ppl to have access to the exact number of installs, or even anything close to the exact number (2-3 sig figs).

This is an interesting point.

It might mean that their precise download numbers aren't accurate and, for whatever reason, exaggerated. This wasn't a problem before monetization, but now they have a case when devs would expect a payout that matches that number. So this might be some sort of a quick and dirty fix to address that.